Author Topic: Ancient PC Resurrection (Read 606 times)

Irwink! · « **on:** December 30, 2006, 03:25:36 PM »

I've revived an old HP Pavilion 6330 with a mind to giving it to someone for basic email and internet stuff. I even managed to upgrade Windows 98 to XP SP2 on the stock 3.75GB boot drive!:lol I do have a somewhat larger 2nd physical disk I can hang in it though. Anyway, the box has a 300mhz AMD K6-2 cpu. I dug around a little on AMD's site but couldn't readily come up with the info I was looking for. Do any of the hardware gurus here know if the K6-2 can be easily upgraded to something a little bigger/better/faster without a lot of effort? This thing was pretty slick ten years ago but today's slugs run/crawl circles around it. Thanks.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #1 on:** December 30, 2006, 04:06:13 PM »

Depends on the mainboard thats in it ...

what that dino is ... its a 486

now the amd k-6 (486) cpu came in mhz sizes from 66 , 100,133,166,200 ,233,266,300,350,400,450,500, and ended at 550mhz

look inside and get the mb number /manufacturer off of it and we can go from there .

if its upgradable to the higher cpu's its a Dance of the jumpers kinda thing to get it to work .. ( the last of the 486 line has a few Bios controlled settings for clocking ,,,, but most of them ive seen and played with are jumpers)
some of the cpu's/mb's do overclock/ accept a higher cpu,,,and there's others wount budge nomatter what ya do to them ...

I've got several k-6 cpu's laying around ... ranging from 166 up thru the 450's and i may even have a spare 500,550 . ive got several compleat pc's yet of this vintage and id have to go check what they've got too ,,mostly gateway stuff (they had higher end hardware in them normally ,,,asus mb's ,monster cards , and so forth)

so if its an upgradeable MB ... i'll give ya a cpu if i have one thats compatable .

llama · « **Reply #2 on:** December 30, 2006, 04:17:25 PM »

If the motherboard's BIOS supports it, it may go up to an AMD K6-3 at 500 MHz, which was as fast as the K6 line went. THe K6-3 had a slightly bigger cache and enhanced 3d-NOW instrucitons, which were almost never used by anything. There was a very limited release of the 550 MHz version.

The K6-2 also went to 550 MHz. It's tough to say what was faster in real-world applications.

There was also an "K6-2 Plus" but I don't know what was so better about it.

Setting the speeds were controlled by jumpers on the motherboards in those days. If your documentation only goes to 300 MHz, there is a good chance that there are other undocumented jumper combinations that will go to 500 or more.

Ebay is your best bet for these CPUs. The 500 MHz version can go for as little as $5. I remember paying $250 for mine back in the day. For a brief time, my K6-2 rig had the fastest Warbirds Framerate on the benchmark page...

-Llama

Roscoroo · « **Reply #3 on:** December 30, 2006, 04:30:13 PM »

my most common problem ive ran across on those ,,, is you have a board that will go to 500 mhz range and ya grab a hand full of the 500mhz -2 cpus and maybe only 1 outta 5 will actually clock and run at 500 ...

I'm shure you've ran across this problem too Eh Llama ?

thats the problem Iwink's has to take into consideration .

P,s. Ive still got a tyan with dual 550's in it ... neener neener

Irwink! · « **Reply #4 on:** December 30, 2006, 05:39:35 PM »

Well the only thing I can get from the motherboard is "made in Taiwan" and apparent part # B61-41-265. I've searched through all of HP's online support files and come up with zilch as far as specs on the board. I'll have to go back and see what if anything I can come up with on the part #. I dd run across some jumper setting info but skated by it looking for the mb specs. I'll look some more.

SkyChimp03 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 30, 2006, 05:45:13 PM »

Might read this didn't even read what is said just serchin' google:D

http://driverzone.com/forum/archive/index.php/thread-1119.html

Irwink! · « **Reply #6 on:** December 30, 2006, 07:31:08 PM »

Skychimp, thanks for the link. I read through it and it may have confirmed what I learned when I went back to HP's jumper info. The jumper info lists settings for the K6-2 300, 333, and 366mhz cpu. That sorta leads me to believe that the 366 may be the best I can do on that board. The part # for the board being discussed in that thread is the same as my board.

Not sure if jumping through the hoops here is justified just to go from 300 to 366mhz. Interesting too is that the specs for the machine state that 256mb is max RAM. That's what's in it now. I may just have to serve it up as-is. Oh well, it works and is better than what the prospective recipient has now - nothin' at all!

Reschke · « **Reply #7 on:** December 30, 2006, 07:37:17 PM »

I just donated a PC built with a K6-2 400 CPU on an ASUS P5A motherboard with 768MB PC100 RAM today with a 4GB IBM Deskstar HDD and a 42X CD-ROM. That sucker would run Windows 2000 like wildfire. I wish I had seen this thread just a little earlier and I would have boxed it up and sent that thing to you for free.

Irwink! · « **Reply #8 on:** December 31, 2006, 04:34:47 PM »

Thanks for the replies and the offer of parts, much appreciated.

Gatr · « **Reply #9 on:** December 31, 2006, 10:00:57 PM »

Do we have a place here for a parts exchange or a place where we can give some folks extra parts we have for upgrades???????????
Gatr
Chomp
go Gators

Roscoroo · « **Reply #10 on:** December 31, 2006, 10:43:12 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Gatr
Do we have a place here for a parts exchange or a place where we can give some folks extra parts we have for upgrades???????????

We're not allowed to actually list our parts with prices or run a forsale auction/section so to speak of ... but you can ask if anyone wants such n such part ,joystick ect ... then take it to email or pm ... I've given away several parts to the needy over the yrs here ..
I'm one of the lucky ones that lives in an area were alot of pc's get tossed away .

Gatr · « **Reply #11 on:** December 31, 2006, 11:21:41 PM »

I am not talkin for sale... just a place where folks could find some second generation stuff like I get from some of the older boxes at work...
We could provide for free.... some things would be a welcome upgrade..
I can't think of a better place for it to go...
I have an older Barton chip gatherin dust around here some place rite now..
I'd be happy to give to an AH player rather than it gather dust in a box!!!!
Maybe some older ram or Vid card...????
I don't know how HT would manage it??
but free is seem simple enough
Gatr

Roscoroo · « **Reply #12 on:** January 01, 2007, 12:24:16 AM »

Rogerdee is hunting a bigger athlon for his KV7 mb ... i think he has a 1.3 currently ... see his post in the hardware section here ..

He's trying to piece together a pc for AH .

eagl · « **Reply #13 on:** January 01, 2007, 12:30:35 AM »

HTC won't allow this forum to become a for-sale-or-trade board, but posting up a list of stuff that you will give away will probably be ok. You'll have to try it and see

In the past, people asking for stuff or offering up items to a good home have been allowed as long as it doesn't get out of hand or turn into a garage sale.

llama · « **Reply #14 on:** January 02, 2007, 01:56:30 PM »

Yet I've had "Wanted: This Hardware Thingie" posts that HT has MOVED to this forum (such as old Thrustmaster throttles.)

Weird.

-Llama